Water firm's customers left in the dark on report citing radium levels

May 12, 2013

Written by

John Ferro

Poughkeepsie Journal

POUGHQUAG — A private water supply system in the Town of Beekman has failed for years to alert customers about unsafe levels of radioactive metal in their water, an exclusive Poughkeepsie Journal investigation has found.

The problem became so bad that in March, the Dutchess County Department of Health directed Cedar Meadows Water Corp. to send its annual water quality report to its customers by certified mail. The county’s directive came after several customers complained they never received the mandated document — for more than a decade, in some cases.

Cedar Meadows has been cited five times since 2011 for violations relating to two forms of radium, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data show. The most recent violation came in the second quarter of 2012. Current levels comply with federal standards for safe drinking water, the county Health Department confirmed.

“I am nervous,” Cedar Meadows customer Kristine Moses said. “I have children living here. … I just assumed they were doing the right thing.”

Cedar Meadows co-owner Michael Gillespie said the company is reviewing its 2012 report, which will be sent via certified mail to customers. Gillespie said the report also will be put online.

Missing reports

Federal regulations require water systems that serve at least 15 year-round residents to provide the water quality document, also known as a Consumer Confidence Report, directly to their customers by May 31 of each year.

Cedar Meadows is a privately owned water utility that began serving customers in the Cameo Farm development in 1999, state Public Service Commission documents show. It supplies 70 homes and about 260 people, according to a copy of its 2011 annual water quality report on file with the state.

Radium is a soluble metal that occurs naturally at low levels in soil, rock, water, plants and animals. Groundwater in areas where the bedrock has higher levels of the metal can have relatively high concentrations as well. People who drink water with levels above the safety threshold over a period of years may have an increased risk of cancer, the EPA says.

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Notices of the combined radium exceedances were included in the 2011 report that was never received by customers.

Gillespie said he does not know why the reports citing the violations were never sent to customers. He said reports from prior years used to be included in envelopes mailed to customers containing one of four quarterly bills. But within the past three years the company switched to a system whereby bills are sent on postcards without any attachments, he said.

“That may have been part of the issue,” he said.

However, several customers told the Journal they have never received a report, in some cases over more than a decade.

“I’ve been here about 11 or 12 years,” Mahoney said. “I’ve never gotten anything from these people but a bill.”

Asked to respond, Gillespie reiterated the reports had been filed with the proper agencies, but did not directly dispute customer claims.

“There would be no reason not to let everybody know what is going on,” he said.

Paperwork history

State records reviewed by the Journal show the company began serving its first 16 customers in June 1999, without notifying the Public Service Commission or obtaining its approval.

State laws require utilities to file tariffs with the PSC prior to any commencement of service. At the time, the company said the failure to file the initial tariff schedule was inadvertent.

More recently, the company has been cited nine times since 2006 either for filing inadequate or untimely water quality reports, a Journal review of EPA data found.

Gillespie said a proposal for a treatment system that would fix any future problems with combined radium is before regulatory authorities.

The state Health Department has approved the treatment option, the county Health Department said. But the plan was blocked by the state Department of Environmental Conservation, which denied a permit to allow discharges into the ground of chloride from the treatment system, Dutchess County Supervising Public Health Engineer Tanya Clark said in an email response to a Journal inquiry.

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Treating water

Combined radium also can be treated in the home with most conventional water softeners.

Clark said Cedar Meadows provided documentation to the county that all homes had softeners. Gillespie told the Journal the company obtained that information through a 2004 survey that was mailed to residents.

In 2011, to ensure that homeowners were notified at least annually of the need to maintain the softeners properly, the county required Cedar Meadows to include additional language to that effect in its annual water quality reports, Clark said.

However, the water quality report for 2011 reviewed by the Journal contains no instructions on the importance of maintaining water softeners. Indeed, the four-page, 1,966-word report addresses water softeners with just two sentences: “It has also been found that softening water reduces levels to acceptable parameters. … Upon treatment (softening), the levels are reduced to zero.”

Clark said the county in January received a copy of the state Department of Health’s certification form from Cedar Meadows indicating that the 2011 water quality report had been provided to customers.

Under the section that asks how the water quality report was distributed to its customers, Cedar Meadows checked “hand delivered.”

After learning from customers that no notification had been received, the county met March 12 with Cedar Meadows and directed the company to send the next report via certified mail, Clark said.

Clark said the county also has requested modifications to the report making the information about water softeners “clearer in language and in font presentation.”